ATTRIBUTED TO THE PAINTER OF MUNICH 1501, CIRCA 520 B.C.

In Greek mythology, when Perseus cut off Medusa's head the winged horse Pegasos, sired by Poseidon, sprang out. With the help of Athena, the hero Bellerophon would harness the wild horse at the spring of Priene, in Corinth, and in some accounts, he rides Pegasos when he kills the Chimaera. Bellerophon would later attempt to fly up to heaven but Zeus agitated the horse, causing the hero to fall back to earth. Depictions make their first appearances in Greek art during the mid 7th century B.C. on two Proto-Corinthian vases and on Attic black-figured vases in the early 6th century. The winged horse was employed as a decorative device without mythological content, sometimes accompanied by a youth, as here, who need not be Bellerophon but could be. The horse alone might fill the space under a handle or appear as a shield blazon, and while an individual in myth, the horse is frequently multiplied at the whim of the artist (see p. 226 in J.M. Padgett, et al., The Centaur's Smile, The Human Animal in Early Greek Art).